This is a competitive renewal application for a Mid-Career Investigator Award in Patient Oriented Research (K24 DA016170) for the candidate, Linda Chang, M.D., a Clinician-Scientist and Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at the University of Hawaii, John A. Burns School of Medicine (UH-JABSOM). During the past 5-years, Dr. Chang relocated from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York to UH- JABSOM, where she became a Professor. She relocated to Hawaii in order to continue her research in patients with methamphetamine abuse and to be involved in the development of a neuroscience research program. Since there was no clinical neuroimaging research at UH, she developed a Neuroscience and MR Research Program, including the acquisition of a 3 Tesla MR scanner, the development of an MR Research Center, and the recruitment of other investigators to conduct neuroimaging research in drug abuse and in neuroHIV/AIDS. The K24 award provided protected research time for her to continue her patient-oriented research at UH-JABSOM, and she was successful in obtaining a renewal of one R01 grant (2R01 MH61427) to study the aging effects of HIV patients and a new R01 grant (1R01 DA21016) to study children with prenatal methamphetamine exposure during the current K24 award period. In addition, she provided mentorship and guidance for 3 junior investigators who successfully obtained mentored K-awards that focused on neuroimaging studies of drugs of abuse after her arrival to UH (no one had a K-award prior to Dr. Chang's arrival at UH-JABSOM). She further obtained a program grant (1U54 NS056883) to develop expertise and provide mentoring to junior investigators in the applications of novel and advanced MR techniques to drug abuse and HIV research. The renewal of this K24 award will allow Dr. Chang to continue her productive research career and mentor junior investigators in patient-oriented research, especially in drug abuse and HIV. She will continue to focus her research on the evaluation of the dopaminergic system in HIV patients, including those with or without nicotine cigarette smoking, using pharmacological functional MRI with event-related design to study risk- taking behaviors and block design to evaluate attention and working memory. She will develop new skills needed to conduct event-related fMRI and in pharmacological fMRI studies. In addition, she will learn many new skills by collaborating with other basic scientists to conduct translational research to determine mechanisms underlying findings in the human studies. Her ongoing research activities, as well as the proposed research, will continue to provide ample opportunities for training junior investigators and students in patient-oriented research. The renewal of this award is needed to maintain her current level of release time from teaching and clinical responsibilities.

Public Health Relevance

This is a competitive renewal application for a Mid-Career Investigator Award in Patient Oriented Research (K24 DA016170) for the candidate, Linda Chang, M.D. The renewal of this K24 award will allow Dr. Chang to continue her productive research career and to provide mentoring to junior investigators in patient-oriented research, focusing on drug abuse and on HIV. She will focus her research on the evaluation of the dopaminergic system in HIV patients with or without nicotine cigarette smoking using a pharmacological approach with functional MRI. She will also collaborate with other basic scientists to conduct translational research in the future. Her ongoing research activities, as well as the proposed research, will provide ample opportunities for training to junior investigators and students in patient-oriented research.